Snipfact:

  Silk comes from the silkworm, the caterpillar of the silkmoth, Silkworms eat a ton of mulberry leaves to make 5 kg (11 lb) of silk

  Wool is shorn from live sheep, which then regrow their costs. The fur and leather of many other animals can be taken only after the animal has been killed. Cattle, goats, rabbits, mink, seals, wolves, foxes, kangaroos, big cats such as leopards, and alligators and snakes are among the many animals that have been used in this way. There are some very special uses for animal skin: for example, medieval manuscripts were written on vellum, made from calfskin.

  Humans have always hunted and eaten wild animals. Milk from such animals as cows, goat, sheep, camels, buffalo, reindeer, Ilamas, and yaks in drunk, used in cooking and made into butter and cheese. The eggs from birds such as hens, ducks, geese and quail are another important food. Honey has long been taken from the hives of wild bees, and now from domesticated bees kept in articial hives.

  A tigress known as the Champwat maneater, after the part of India in which she lived, killed a record of 436 people over five years. She was shot in 1907 by British big-game hunter Colonel Jim Corbett (1875-1955)

  There are about 1,101,639,064 sheep in the world – an average of one sheep for every six people. In some countries there are more sheep than humans. Falkland Islands 690,000 sheep, 3,060 people = 225 sheep per person New Zealand 40,106,800 sheep, 4,121,662 people = 10 sheep per person Australia 100,100,00 sheep, 20,245,629 people = 5 sheep per person Mongolia 12,884,500 sheep, 20,245,629 people = 5 sheep per person Uruguay 9,712,000 sheep, 3,383,284 people = 3 sheep per person Mauritania 8,850,000 sheep, 3,022,150 people = 3 sheep per person

  Teddy bears are named after US president Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt. The story began when the president refused to shoot a young bear while on a hunting trip. This incident appeared in a cartoon by Clifford K. Berryman, published in the Washington Post on 16 November 19002. Soon after, Morris Michtom, a New York shopkeeper, started making stuffed bears and advertising them as “Teddy’s Bears” with Roosevelt’s permission. At about the same time. Margarete Steiff, a German toymaker, started making her first toy bears and exported them to the USA to meet the demand created by Teddy’s Bears. In 1903 Steiff’s factory produced 12,000 bears. By 1907, the figure had risen to 974,000. Steiff teddy bears, with a distinctive tag on their ear, are still made and are sold internationally. Early examples are prized by collectors.

  Fleas are perhaps the most dangerous creatures of all – they were the carriers of the deadly bubonic plague that killed millions of people in medieval times